The present invention relates to devices for holding sheets, cards or the like, capable of being applied on a rigid support.
Devices for holding sheets, cards or the like are already known. For instance, such devices are described in the following documents: U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,828,402, 4,478,384 and 3,797,795, GB-A-2 092 525 and FR-A-2 602 899.
The devices described in these documents enable one or two sheets, cards or the like to be held on a given support, but they notably suffer from the drawback of accepting such sheets only when they are introduced according to one or two preferential directions. In other words, they do not accept to hold sheets whatever their direction of introduction.
A device is also known for holding sheets, cards or the like relatively to a support, wherein the sheets may be introduced according to an infinite number of directions in fact distributed over three hundred and sixty degrees. Such a device is described in GB-A-2 129 296.
The device described in this document comprises a front plate built out of an elastically deformable material, a support and a spot of glue for binding the front plate, substantially at its center, with the support. This device allows for multidirectional introduction of sheets, all around the spot of glue, between the front plate and the support, but it also suffers from drawbacks. First of all, it may only hold sheets which have a thickness slightly greater than the defined space between the front plate and the support. Furthermore, introduction of sheets, cards or the like between the front plate and the support may prove to be difficult, with even the risk of damaging the sheets and even the front plate. Furthermore, this device has a relatively short life time. Indeed, successive deformations undergone by the front plate damage it rather rapidly, which prevents it from playing its role of holding the sheets and bearing information, for example advertising information, if it was bearing inscriptions, logos, etc.
Accordingly, the object of the present invention is to produce a device which largely overcomes the drawbacks of the aforementioned prior art devices.
The object of the present invention is also to produce a device for holding sheets, cards or the like, which may be very easily applied on any support, regardless of the nature and shapes of these supports, of course within certain limits.
More specifically, the object of the present invention is a device for holding sheets, cards or the like, capable of being applied on a rigid support, comprising:
a front plate having two opposite faces, a first and a second one
a pellet having a substantially cylindrical general shape of a determined height and of a cross-section less than the surface area of the first face of the front plate, said pellet having two opposite end faces, a first and a second one, first means for fixing the first end face of the pellet onto the first face of the front plate, and
second means for fixing the second end face of the pellet onto the support,
characterized in that:
said front plate is relatively stiff, and
it further comprises:
at least two elastic tabs, and
means for mounting both said tabs cooperatively with said front plate such that, on the one hand, these two tabs are able to apply, through a first one of both their ends, elastic forces on points located on two distinct lines, against a reaction exerted by their second end on the first face of said front plate and, on the other hand, so that the cylindrical volume generated by a generatrix substantially perpendicular to the first face of said front plate and resting on the convex polygon formed by both said lines and two straight lines joining both ends of both said lines, respectively, has a cross-section at most equal to the surface area of the first face of the front plate and greater than the surface area of the second end face of said pellet, and so that said pellet is located within said cylindrical volume at its center.